The Groundwater Crisis: The Flint Water Crisis

As Doidge et al. illustrate, the historical background of Flint City’s drinking water supply emanated from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. This was through a contractual basis for over three decades, and its main source of water was Lake Huron. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department is an extensive system encompassing almost 1,080 square-miles, and provides to more than two fifths of the Michigan State population. In the year 2000 alone, the system covered 11,000 miles of water channels with a storage volume of about 360 million gallons. It supplied water to nearly four million people in Detroit and its metropolitan locale.

Who knew that Flints water could be deadly? Everyone should be allowed to have the same clean water to bathe in, drink, cook with, and to have fun in. Unfortunately, residents in Flint could not do this for quite some time. These residents were bathing and drinking from this water before the founding of high lead levels in it. Not only was it because of the high lead levels, but the pipes were very old as well. Due to actions made by the city council this caused a lot of problems for the residents in the city of Flint. This effected children, pregnant women, and the elderly the most. Many lawsuits were filed against the city of Flint. It was so serious to the point that Governor Snyder had to declare a state of emergency. This took place January 5th of 2016. High levels of lead in the water and old pipes lead to lawsuits, the sickness of Flint residents, and the city of Flint not doing their job.

On December 3rd, 2015, the mayor of Flint, MI Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency because of the high levels of lead in the water supply. Two weeks later President Obama directed FEMA to help provide equipment and resources to the citizens affected, including providing bottled water and local water stations around the city. On March 21st, 2016, Governor Rick Snyder came out with an outline that addresses the agencies goal to help fix the crisis. It focused on providing professional support for children under 6 with elevated lead levels, replacing water fixtures in public facilities, replacing the city’s 8,000 lead service lines, and increasing resources for schools. (Michigan.gov. 2017). Through April to July 2016, nine state officials and employees face criminal

The state of Michigan is in a serious crisis! The governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, seems to not care about the poor people of the state of Michigan. One of the state of Michigan’s urban school system, in the city of Detroit, is unhealthy, disorganized and is not equipped with the necessary supplies, equipment or resources to effectively or safely teach students. The water pipes in Flint, Michigan are filled with lead and citizens in Flint who drink, bathe, and cook with the municipal water have incurred lead poisoning.

“Water is a human right”-  Michigan Nurses. Due to a lack of financial resources and government funding, the city of  Flint, Michigan began to make budget cuts. One major budget cut was the waterway from Lake Huron to Flint. Government officials decided on connecting Flint to the Flint river, which has previously raised infestation problems. After the major switch city occupants commenced to complain about the smell and taste of at home tap water.

In her article, Flint Water Crisis, Dr. Mona Hann-Attisha, discusses the occurrence about highly elevated, possibly but not yet actually harmful levels of lead in the drinking water in Flint, Michigan, received national attention. She describes Flint, Michigan, was once a postindustrial home to flourishing automotive plants; the water crisis has been described as an example of government wrongdoing and disrepair by some and of a lack of omission by federal environmental regulators by others. She points to the tendency prior to a series of tests by independent researchers at Virginia Tech in October 2015, many residents found that their unease about the water’s taste, odor, and smell were being disregard intentionally by city and state officials,

Flint Water Crisis, independent professionals reported testing the drinking water and what was found that there is lead and it was leaching into the main water supply. Contaminated water with lead and iron may be the most intense image of environmental and social injustice. Flint, Michigan, is amongst the poorest in the U.S. and majority African American, since 2014(npr.org 2016). The citizens of Flint had been complaining that their tap water was foul and discolored and had an odd taste. Nonetheless city, state, and federal officials ignored the issue. It has been stated that by changing the Flint water pipeline back to Lake Huron will not rectify the damage, investigators and many researchers believe that it may not be possible to ever undo

The residents of Flint, Michigan had clear, drinkable water that anyone could use and drink, but the water started to become less and less consumable. Melisa Mays, a resident of Flint, claims that she broke out in rashes and developed a respiratory infection, which makes her cough up phlegm that taste like cleaning products. The Flint, Michigan Water Crisis began in April 2014, when the city of Flint changed their water source. Flint used to buy their water from Detroit, but due to the rising rates that were being charged for the water, Flint decided to switch its source to Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA), which created problems with Detroit (The Toxic Tap). Though Flint was changing its water source they had to wait due to pipeline construction, so Flint started using the Flint River as the primary source for municipal water until the pipeline construction was compete. The Flint River was not safe to use, which resulted in health problems in many of the residents of Flint, Michigan (The Water Quality). Though residents were being impacted, children were the ones who were exposed to greater dangers (Elevated Blood Lead Levels in Children Associated with the Flint Drinking Water Crisis).

When people who lived in the city say they realized something was wrong the big guys kept saying there was nothing wrong and put it off for a whole month. President Obama had to claim a federal state of emergency on Flint, Michigan in 2014 because of the water that has been polluted by toxins and lead, but by the time the city officials realized something was wrong the pipes were already in too much damage (Kennedy/ npr). The City of flint is forty percent poor African American people, and this has put them in a giant crisis and when everything went down the people of Flint, Michigan went on strike (Kennedy/ npr). The polluted water was not fixed until April 6, 2018, this crisis lasted over four

The inaccessibility of clean water has burdened Flint Michigan in recent years; however it is not algal bloom or overflowing sewers that has contaminated local water sources, rather it is highly corrosive water that destroyed old lead pipes. Flint, Michigan is located a little over an hour north of the lively city of Detroit. Flint’s population totals around 100,000 citizens. This city has attracted nationwide attention, in the last few years, as economic despair and widespread water contamination continues to burden the suburb to this day. Economic tension in Flint surfaced in 2011, when the state’s auditing determined that Flint was buried by economic ruin: precisely a $25 million deficit. As a result, in April of 2015, the water supply

I read an article published by NPR about the water crisis still currently happening in Flint, Michigan. The article provides a timeline leading up to the crisis and the backlash it has created in the town. It starts off with Flint city officials deciding whether or not the town can save money by getting their water from another source. To do this they would build their own pipeline and it’s said it would save the town up to $200 million is 25 years. Despite saying the water was safe and clean to use, it still caused a lot of problems. Residents complained about how the water tasted and smelt bad, and General Motors refused to continue using the water because they feared it would cause corrosion and damage to their machines. And instead of testing

An online slideshow titled “How Flint Water Crisis Emerged,” published by MLive, a Michigan news source, written by Wilson, Samuel, Michelle Tessier, and Erin Kirkland gives a timeline of how Flint’s water crisis emerged. The second slide, written by Samuel Wilson, claims that the water crisis actually began in 2013, shortly after Flint’s emergency manager, Ed Kurtz, signed an agreement to stop buying water from Detroit. Kurtz and the city council, in an effort to save money, voted to join a

In 2014, Flint, Michigan chose to switch their water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. During this change, the city did not add any products to the water to stop it from getting polluted. Because there were no products added to the water, the water became extremely contaminated. There was literally no water in Flint that was in drinking condition. Towards the end of the Fall of 2015, Flint’s water crisis went global.

He, along with the state and government environmental agencies, ignored the problem. The one who brought light to this problem was, Dr. Monna Hanna-Attisha a director of pediatric residency at Huely Children’s Hospital in Flint. She had tested over 2,000 children for lead poisoning. She was dismissed by agencies, and the agencies only spoke out and showed the media the blood levels of the children in Flint in September 2015. (Sanburn) The agencies are clearly the brains of the operations and were a large part of the problem. Governor Snyder still holds responsibility, because he had knowledge of the problem previously. He had close integration with Flint in the past from having multiple city emergency managers fail. Governor Snyder may have been naïve to the water problems of Flint. This still entails that he made the conscious decision to turn a total blind eye on a city with a history of trouble with their water. The water problems weren’t easy to miss the complaints from residents in the spring, and GM not using it because of its corrosive qualities in the fall of 2014. Dismissing the Flint water crisis at first, Snyder failed his job as a governor to the people who need true governing. Snyder didn’t declare a state of emergency until the winter of 2015; he didn’t care for the city of Flint since they failed to bring him in any revenue. He lacks basic ethics, by not wanting to try and help the city of Flint flourish. As a Governor there is a lot of responsibility that Snyder does not want to

The more polluted a water source is, the more processing required to make the water safe to drink. Most of the contaminants now in Flint’s drinking water were introduced during or after processing. For all drinking water, the first concern is bacteria, which can cause diseases like hepatitis, Legionnaire’s disease, and other illnesses. Because Flint’s river water had high levels of bacteria, it was treated with additional chlorine. Chlorine reacts with organic material in the water to produce carcinogenic byproducts such as trihalomethanes; it also makes water more acidic, which corrodes pipes. Federal law mandates adding anti-corrosive agents to drinking water in large cities; this standard water treatment practice was not followed (Carmody, 2016). The water created issues with lead due to its high acidity. Water service connections have been made for years using lead piping primarily in the 1920s and 1930s. The acidic water corroded the old lead pipes and lead seeped into the water. Lead poisoning is the most widespread and serious health problem associated with Flint’s drinking water; children with prolonged exposure to lead experience a range of developmental problems that are incurable. Flint’s water-treatment staff were not able to successfully make Flint River water safe to drink. Whether this is because they were undertrained, understaffed, or simply made a decision not to invest scarce